Abstract

The modern science of judgment and decision making began to emerge in the 1950s, and was thus unknown when Abraham Flexner wrote Medical Education in the United States and Canada (1910). This did not stop Flexner from highlighting the unique challenges facing the physician as a decision maker, as part of his effort to press for requiring some college education as a prerequisite for medical school:The engineer deals mainly with measurable factors. His factor of uncertainty is within fairly narrow limits. The reasoning of the medical student is much more complicated. He handles at one and the same time elements belonging to vastly different categories: physical, biological, psychological elements are involved in ..